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Second bombing in China targets provincial HQ of CCP

Stephen McDonellUpdated
Wed 6 Nov 2013, 7:15 PM AEDT

In China, a series of bombs has been detonated at a provincial headquarters of the Communist Party, though nobody has claimed responsibility. One person died and eight more were injured when the bombs, packed with ball-bearings, were set off in Taiyuan today. The blasts come with only days to go until the Communist Party holds a major meeting in the Chinese capital.

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: In China, somebody has bombed a provincial headquarters of the Communist Party, but nobody has claimed responsibility.

One person died and eight more were injured when a series of bombs packed with ball-bearings were set off in Taiyuan today.

The blasts come a week after a car was burnt in front of the famous portrait of Mao Zedong in Tiananmen Square and with only days before the Communist Party holds a major meeting in the Chinese capital.

China correspondent Stephen McDonell joins me on the line from our Beijing bureau.

So what do we know about this attack in Taiyuan, first?

STEPHEN MCDONNELL: Well, outside the provincial headquarters of the Shanxi Communist Party in, as you said, in Taiyuan City...

MARK COLVIN: Which is, roughly, what part of China?

STEPHEN MCDONNELL: So it's just to the west of Beijing. There's sort of Beijing, there's Hebei Province around Beijing. You head a little bit further west and you come to Shanxi.

And somebody has put these home-made bombs in flower beds outside the buildings. Several devices, the police are saying, as you mentioned packed with ball-bearings. Then they set them all off and the debris... I suppose you put those ball-bearings in as you do to cause, you know, maximum destruction.

And apart from the death and the injuries, cars nearby have all been smashed up. You can see pictures on the internet of a great deal of debris from the blast which has gone all the way across the road.

MARK COLVIN: So these were more like IEDs than suicide bombs, because people often sew those ball-bearings into jackets for suicide bombers, don't they?

STEPHEN MCDONNELL: Yeah, that's right: something more like an IED.

MARK COLVIN: And is there any clue as to who might have done it?

STEPHEN MCDONNELL: Well, no. As you mentioned, nobody's claimed responsibility and at this stage the authorities are not blaming anyone for it.

In the past, these kinds of explosions have been linked to local grievances, things that it might surprise people in Australia that someone would blow up a government building for. But maybe someone's had their land taken away from them, a farmer; or a steelworker who's got some dispute with their employer. And there's a lot of pressure on people in China in these cities and sometimes they resort to these seemingly extreme measures.

MARK COLVIN: But no link then? If it was completely local, does that imply no link to the explosion or the burning of a car which was apparently deliberately loaded with a very large amount of petrol, right very close to the big portrait of Chairman Mao in Tiananmen Square?

STEPHEN MCDONNELL: Well, you know, you hate to make predictions. I may be proven wrong but I can't see the link at this stage. In that case - and we're relying on the word of the authorities here - so if we take them at their word, they're saying three ethnic Uighurs smashed a car into that iconic location, set off a big fire inside the car, killing themselves, two other people that they ran into as well and that others have been arrested.

And this is supposedly because of grievances of people who want an ethnic Uighur homeland in the big, vast Muslim area in the west of the country. Now, there's no indication that this place in Shanxi would have anything to do with that. It's not known for having Uighurs live there or a big Muslim population or anything like that. So it looks like it's not related at all.

MARK COLVIN: And what about the timing, just ahead of the big Communist Party meeting coming up Beijing in a few days?

STEPHEN MCDONNELL: Well, this is what would be really worrying the authorities here. Already, in Beijing now, if you drive down Chang'an Avenue, for example, where our bureau is, towards Tiananmen Square, on every corner there are police there making sure that nothing happens in the run-up to this meeting.

And they've had these two major incidents, one in the heart of Chinese power, when somebody killed themselves for a political purpose, we're led to believe. And now, obviously another political attack on the Communist Party in Shanxi, just days before this major meeting, well, they'd be very worried. They certainly wouldn't want more copycat actions.